


The Lost Words

by bottle_of_smoke



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Amnesia fic, Big Dick Richie Tozier, First Time, Infidelity, M/M, POV Eddie Kaspbrak, Pre-IT Chapter Two (2019), Virgin Eddie Kaspbrak, reluctant top Richie Tozier, the great forgetting, turtle magic, wet dick Eddie Kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:02:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27326983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottle_of_smoke/pseuds/bottle_of_smoke
Summary: Eddie takes a pitstop, meets a stranger, and remembers his ice safety.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 96
Kudos: 307





	The Lost Words

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone else already wrote their amnesia fic; here's mine.
> 
> Minor warnings for brief mentions of cancer, 9/11, Eddie's orthorexia, plus author's on-brand geographical handwaving and sentimentalism.

The snow ticking against the windshield made a sound like striking locusts and it was this, as much as the approaching blizzard, that made Eddie pull into the truckstop.

What residual heat that had been lingering in the car evaporated with the cutting of the engine. Eddie shivered and pulled his coat tight around him. The coat—sleek grey herringbone, a gift to himself when he’d gotten the job at his firm back in ‘03—had cost him more than the car, yet it was proving inadequate against the vagaries of the New England winter, or at least the part of it trapped in the cabin with him. If he got this new position he’d get a warmer coat, he decided. Better still, a new car.

Warmed by this agreeable thought he opened the door and stepped outside. The blizzard was in its infancy yet, insect needles pricking his cheeks. Perfectly navigable if you didn’t drive like an asshole. Eddie didn’t, but he’d no faith in his fellow motorists. Already this evening he’d had three screaming fits at three separate Manhattan cab drivers, and later he’d had to take a forty minute detour off the highway into buttfuck nowhere countryside avoiding a pile-up. And that was before the snow had started. The detour had thrown him, which in itself threw him: Eddie did not get lost. He was unwilling to say he was lost now—he knew he was heading north, and caribou instinct put him somewhere in New Hampshire—but there had been something unsettling about the diversion he had taken. Ill-lit backroads leading to nowhere, and though he had seen no other drivers there seemed no end of roadkill, heaped unidentifiable carcasses perceptible only by their light-catching eyes. Obscurely, he had been afraid. Dead reckoning alone had brought him here, a smudge of dimly colourful light that had resolved itself into a diner and motel combo. It was a weird spot for a truck spot, close to (he knew now, by the faint grimy odour and low hum of the clear cold air) but not actually on the highway. A need-to-know sort of truckstop. Still, there were several vehicles in the parking lot and a couple of lit windows in the motel, and the bright sign of the diner was inviting. People, in other words. Which, right now, Eddie needed.

Eddie looked at the sign again. The Hungry Turtle, it said, and there was a neon animated sign of the eponymous reptile eating—no,  _ puking _ —a galaxy. Weird. But it was a different weird to the dark backroads with their watching creature-corpses. Indeed, the turtle seemed benevolent in spite of his bellyache, as though he thought it was all rather funny. Eddie was drawn to him.

Friendly or otherwise, Eddie was going to have to go in. In the short time he’d been outside the sleet had dug in. The expensive, impractical coat was growing heavy on his shoulders. He needed a coffee. And a piss. Once he’d done that he could return to the road, all the dipshits chased off by second thoughts or Darwinism. He trusted in his own ability to navigate the snow. In any case, his life would not be worth living if he didn’t return home tonight.

With a sudden misgiving he retrieved his Razr from his pocket. Twenty-three missed calls. Positively abstemious, he thought caustically, then shut the thought down. No need to be an asshole. Of course she was worried, what with the long drive both ways and the weather and her only son  _ leaving _ —but enough of that. If he wanted that he could just listen to any one of the twenty-three messages clogging up his inbox. As he stared at the phone, wondering if he was going to do that, it began to ring.  _ Nope _ , he decided, with sudden clarity. Not tonight. He snapped the phone shut. He would pay for it later, but right now he wanted only the comforting worries of OSHA violations and public restrooms. With that in mind he threw his cellphone into the glovebox and retrieved a handful of Clorox wipes, folding them neatly into his pocket.

The central heating landed like a clout. Eddie had flown only a handful of times in his life. He knew the statistics, had read the papers that indicated an increase in Americans dying in RTAs as they favoured roads over airplanes post-9/11. He knew all about risk perception. Yet he was not immune to its effects. The fact was Eddie hated flying and avoided it at all costs. The last time he had flown had been last summer, a work conference in Albuquerque of all fucking places. The plane had dropped them right on the blacktop, and as Eddie stepped out he had felt the actual physical impact of dry heat. It was like he’d walked into a wall. That was what this central heating was like. Steam rose off his shoulders. He smelled wet wool.  


One look around the place told him that, aside from the turtle and the subtropical microclimate, there was nothing especially different about this truckstop diner. There was a scattering of the usual beefy, raw-armed clientele; stained formica tables topped with plastic bottles, each fringed with a prepuce of dried sauce; and a tired-looking waitress too old to be working but too poor to retire. Depression weighed on Eddie like the snow in his coat. He considered heading straight to the bathroom but the thought sent a shudder up his spine. He’d have coffee first, then he could piss that too and avoid having to pull up again later in his journey.

The ketchup foreskins creeped him out so he headed up to the counter. There was one other customer there. He didn’t look like a trucker, and Eddie was ashamed that this filled him with relief. He was careful to avoid eye contact while he pulled up his stool but the guy seemed absorbed by whatever he was doing on his cellphone. Eddie wished he hadn’t left his in the car. He wondered what he could use as a social deflection if anyone tried to make conversation. No phone, no MP3 player, no book... he felt a flash of annoyance for not thinking ahead.

For the time being nobody bothered him. The waitress came over and he ordered a black coffee; when he told her that would be all, she pulled a cat’s-ass mouth and dumped down a menu anyway. Grease had worked its way under the laminate. Repelled, he pushed the thing away with a napkin. 

Only when his stomach rumbled did he realise he was hungry. Looking at the menu quelled the urge somewhat. There was not a single dish he could see that wasn’t swimming in fat or salt or monosaccharides. The fish entrée had potential but he loathed all seafood. Myra kept trying to make him try it, going on about omega-3 and brain health, waving forkfuls of horrible salmon at him, but it was like air travel. He just didn’t like it.

The coffee wasn’t great but it was hot and strong and he pretty much necked it. The waitress made it quite clear, without once opening her mouth or pouring hot coffee over Eddie’s hand, what she thought of customers who didn’t order food but took the refills. When she walked away she left behind the greasy menu. From somewhere behind him he heard her clearing a table, chatting warmly with another customer.

‘Wow, she fucking hates you.’

Eddie turned. The not-trucker had put aside his phone and was looking at him.

‘Seriously, Ruth hates no one. What did you do? Fuck her and leave her?’

‘Fuck you,’ Eddie spat, astonishing himself. All the hairs were standing on his body, like he’d walked into the middle of a massive electrical storm. He was overwhelmed by a feeling he struggled to identify. Anger didn’t cover it. Neither did loathing.

The asshole laughed. It was a nice sort of laugh, Eddie thought in spite of himself. The hairs on his body settled but he still felt full of electric. He turned back to his coffee, disturbed but determined not to give this idiot a second more of his attention.

‘That’s some massive personal magnetism you got there. It must be a surprise that she hates you. I bet you’re not used to that at all.’

Eddie whirled back around like he was on puppet-strings. The guy wore thick glasses. They were bound together on one side with watermelon-printed duct tape, a fact which served only to catalyse his rage. ‘Dude, who fucking asked you?’ He was shocked by the hugeness of his anger but couldn’t stop. ‘Leave me the fuck alone.’

The guy held his hands up. He was still grinning, but it was a dog’s grin of anxious appeasement. ‘Sorry, man. Just trying to initiate a conversation.’

‘By asking me if I fucked the elderly waitress?’ Eddie flung his hands in the air. ‘You’ve got some balls accusing me of lacking social magnetism. Try commenting on the fucking weather or like, the big game next time.’

The horrible dog-grin had gone, the shit-eater back. Like his laugh it was nice—genuine and warm. It made his cheeks crinkle, emphasising the oddly appealing wonky left eye. Eddie felt hot. He was going to have to ask the waitress to turn down the thermostat. This place was single-handedly driving climate change.

‘You do _not_ look like a sports guy.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Eddie snapped, though he knew. The guy didn’t answer but raked his eyes over Eddie. Expecting more anger, Eddie found himself blushing. This guy really looked at you. Eddie didn’t think he’d even been looked at like this before, with such interest, and he felt—no doubt about it—kind of thrilled. Mortified, he took a big displacement swig of scalding coffee, taking what felt like his entire oral mucosa with it.

‘That’s a fancy ring.’

If it was possible for Eddie to blush more than he already was he would have. He looked down at his hand. Like the coat the ruby-set gold signet had been a gift to himself. He’d justified it somehow or other at the time, but in truth had bought it because, well, he liked it. He kept it put away mostly but before setting out that morning had slid it over his pinkie finger. Looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, ring in place and the expensive coat concealing his old-fashioned suit, he’d felt strangely pleased. He had put his hand into his pocket when he kissed his mother goodbye. He knew the ring would upset her, more than she already was. He refused to examine why this was, or why later during his interview he had turned it around, obscuring the jewel. In the car by himself he had turned it back and admired it in the low winter light, pleased with the effect. Now the thing was ruined. He tucked his hand between his knees. He wished he had left it in the glovebox with his phone. Better yet, not worn it at all.

‘Fine, you got me. I’m not a sports guy.’ 

‘Dude, I’m not making fun of you.’ The guy’s voice was so different that Eddie looked up. The shit-eating grin was gone. He licked his lips, made a vague gesture at his body. ‘I mean, look at me. I have no right to ridicule the way anyone else dresses.’

Eddie took that as permission to look. Even when he wasn’t smiling faint creases remained at the corners of the guy’s eyes. In spite of these he looked to be about Eddie’s age, give or take a few years maybe. It was a nice face, too asymmetrical and squarely built to be really good-looking, but pleasant and interesting. He wore what Eddie had initially thought was a green turtle t-shirt but turned out to be the Incredible Hulk. Over this he’d slung on a pink Hawaiian button-down.  _ What kind of asshole wears pink?  _ Eddie thought, irritated because he liked pink but would never have the courage to wear it. Everything the guy wore looked tired and ratty, buttons missing and taut at the seams. Even sitting he was plainly tall, and the linebacker shoulders were unmissable from any angle; yet he appeared as though this was a surprise to him, and sat hunched like he was embarrassed by it. It occurred to Eddie, who was sensitive to such matters, that this bulk must be a recent thing, something newly grown into, that he had not yet learned how to occupy the space he took up. For someone who came across so self-assured, he was doing a great physical impression of a person who wanted to disappear. Eddie was overwhelmed by a sudden sense of sympathy.

‘I’m Edward,’ Eddie said. He held out his hand.

‘I’m Richie.’ The guy took it and— _ electrocuted him _ .

Eddie snatched back his hand. ‘What the fuck?’

‘Dude, that wasn’t me!’ The guy—Richie—was clutching his hand like he’d been bitten by a snake. Behind the coke-bottle lenses his eyes were wide with shock.

‘Must’ve been static,’ Eddie said. But it hadn’t felt like static. 

‘It felt like stigmata,’ grumbled Richie. He examined his palm. ‘Like someone stuck a fucking knife in my hand.’

_ Or glass,  _ Eddie thought. He wondered if Richie’s heart was beating as hard as his was, if his mouth were as dry. ‘Maybe it’s the storm outside. Static in the air or something.’

‘Whatever.’ Richie flexed his fingers one last time then fixed Eddie with an examining stare, boxy jaw cocked in an incipient smirk. ‘So,  _ Edward _ ...’ He moved the word round with his tongue, like he was testing its mouthfeel.

‘That’s right.’ Eddie’s heart hammered. He could feel his throat tightening. It had been years since he’d had the sort of panic attack where he’d had to use his inhaler but he touched it now, his placebo talisman, disliking himself for it.

‘You’re not an Edward.’ 

Eddie wanted to argue but before he could Richie was poking him in the chest, in the spot his necktie showed under his coat. ‘That’s Edward.’ He kicked Eddie’s loafers. ‘And that’s Edward. And this frumpy old suit is Edward’s too. But that fucking ugly-ass pinkie ring isn’t. The guy who told me to fuck myself the second he met me isn’t Edward. You’re someone else. You’re…’

‘Eddie,’ said Eddie. It was weird how he knew. How he could look at Eddie and just… see him. Eddie had never felt seen before. He had not thought he would like it. It made him want to ask,  _ do we know each other? _ but what he said was, ‘And my ring is not ugly.’

Richie angled his face to hide a grin Eddie saw anyway. ‘Dude, it’s not a criticism. I think I already made clear my feelings about garish shit.’ He held his arms apart, displaying himself like a pinned butterfly. The seams of his shirt creaked alarmingly. ‘Own your trashy ass self.’

He was messing but Eddie felt empowered all the same. It was like that morning, when he had put the ring on and looked at himself in the mirror. Now he tilted it in the LEDs so it winked, pleased with it again.

‘So what brings you to this part of the world, Eddie?’ Richie’s eyes were fixed on the window. Eddie turned to look and saw the blizzard had picked up. The effect was like dazzle camouflage, and Eddie thought how stupid he had been to think he could drive in it. It would be best to stay put till it settled down, he decided. He thought of the cellphone locked in his car and was disturbed by how unmoved he felt.

‘I had an interview.’

‘Here?’

‘Manhattan.’

Richie showed his teeth. ‘Let me guess. Banker?’

Eddie flushed. ‘Not quite. I’d be working for a bank, though.’

Richie’s eyes grew bright behind the thick frames. ‘Seriously? Wall Street?’

‘Yes.’

Richie reeled. ‘Aw, man. And I was getting all ready to like you! So what layer of hell were you interviewing for?’

‘I’m an actuary.’ He saw Richie’s mouth move and cut him off. ‘You don’t need to pretend you know what that is. Risk management in insurance. Stuff like that.’

‘Yeah I don’t know what that is. Sounds riveting, though.’

‘Fuck off. It’s actually ranked as one of the most desirable professions.’

‘Because no one’s heard of it. How much you earn off it?’

Eddie was taken aback. No one had asked him this question, not even Myra who had an arguable right to know. He had told his mother but only in an attempt to appease her during one of her more tragic outbursts. It had worked, to a point. Like her son, Sonia Kaspbrak liked nice things.

Still, there was something about Richie that compelled him to answer. Eddie looked around, conscious of being overheard. ‘This particular position? Six figures.’

Richie whistled. ‘I can see why it’s desirable. Bonus?’

‘Yes.’ He felt acutely embarrassed. It mystified him that he would talk like this to a total stranger. He could be a criminal for all he knew. He might be lining Eddie up for his next mark. Sort of a dumb move though, lining him up before he even had the job.

‘Do you think you’ll get it?’ Richie asked.

‘The interview went well, I think. I’ve got a chance.’ He didn’t say that he had never gone for a job he didn’t get, that he had an instinct for these things that bordered on the uncanny. He did not mention the offer at the World Trade Center shortly after he finished his MBA which he had turned down on gut feeling alone. A spectre rose in his mind’s eye, the shadowy graveyard roads of the evening’s detour, air like a glass edge; and an inexplicable foetid stench of sewer.

‘You’ll get it. You’re very New York already.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Eddie bristled.

‘Like that! Spiky. Aggressive and dark and little.  _ I’m walkin’ here! _ ’ The impression erupted from Richie as though he were possessed.  _ Well his Voices got better _ , Eddie thought, a thought so strange he instantly forgot it.

‘You don’t know me,’ Eddie said. He did not know if he meant it. Unsettled, he took a drink of his coffee. It had been refilled without his noticing.

‘Yeah, and the first thing you did was tell me to fuck off. Seriously, where are you from?’

‘I live in Portland.’ Then, as he had done at his interview, ‘The Maine one.’

‘Yeah, I got that.’ Richie grinned. ‘Wow, you are  _ not  _ a Maine person.’

‘What would you know about it? Just cause I don’t, what, shoot deer or cut down trees or like, wear plaid shirts—?’

‘Dude, it’s not an insult. I left Maine for New York first chance I got too.’

‘You’re from Maine?’

‘Ayuh. Very much not a Maine person, also. Although I’m visualising you in an L.L. Bean fleece now and it’s like, doing stuff.’

Without really acknowledging it Eddie had known that he was being flirted with. Now it sank in. It bothered him how little it bothered him. Briefly he thought of Myra, then pushed the thought away, not out of guilt but because it did not seem to matter. It was as though he and Richie and the Hungry Turtle diner were the only thing that existed in the entire world. At some point somebody had moved closer to the other. Eddie realised he couldn’t swear it wasn’t him. Richie’s arm was very near and the hair on it brushed Eddie’s; he imagined he felt it through his coat. Beneath the diner smell of bacon fat and Lysol he could detect the other man’s aftershave. He felt strangely hungry. ‘What is it you do then?’ he asked. His jaw ached like he smelled vinegar. He swallowed the water that filled his mouth.

Richie smiled at the dodged gambit. ‘I do stand-up.’

‘Oh!’ Relief flooded Eddie. ‘I thought you seemed familiar. I must have seen you on TV at some point.’

‘I doubt it. I am very much _not_ a six-figure-earner.’

‘You’re not on TV?’

‘Not deliberately. I might have made it onto one of those clip shows where some asshole wipes out on an ice rink or shats himself at a wedding.’

‘You skate?’ Eddie could visualise this a lot less easily than Richie crapping himself at someone’s wedding.

‘Who fucking knows. I do a lot of shit when I’m drunk that I don’t remember. My memory’s dogshit.’

It wasn’t that, then. Yet the sense of familiarity didn’t shift. Unsettled, he attended to the more immediate need. ‘I’m hungry. I think I’m gonna order.’

Richie made a be-my-guest gesture. At once Eddie missed the almost-pressure of their adjacent forearms. He picked up the menu, embarrassed at himself. Hunger had not improved the options. He put the menu back down and rubbed his fingers with a napkin. 

‘Change your mind?’ Richie asked.

‘I can’t decide. I have some sensitivities, plus I’ve been trying to eat more raw food and I’m doing Atkins.’

‘What, like Greek food?’

‘No, that’s Ath—.’ He caught Richie’s grin.  _ What a shitty fucking joke _ , he thought with a rush of adrenaline, a rage so disproportionate it was like a forgotten reflex. Something else, too. Unable to parse his own feelings he turned his anger on the menu. ‘I’m fucking starving and there’s nothing I can fucking eat.’

‘Dude, calm the fuck down.’ Richie’s eyes tracked the waitress; reassured, he turned his attention back to Eddie. ‘Forget the faddy fucking diet for a minute and get the fries. They’re awesome.’

‘You can’t eat fries on Atkins,’ Eddie snapped. He knew he was being unreasonable but couldn’t stop. It was like he was possessed, like he’d been flayed and his raw nerves exposed.

‘It’s one fucking day. Your skinny bitch arteries can take the hit. Get the fucking fries.’

‘Fine.’ He watched Richie wave over the waitress. Though he was used to doing what he was told he was disturbed. When it was his mom or Myra he didn’t feel like he had a choice in the matter, which made it easy. Here it was as though he had participated in a sort of ritual, something instinctive like courtship, performed with the intent of reaching a shared and predetermined goal. His blood sang and his teeth felt cunning in his mouth. Obscurely, he understood he was happy.

‘He’ll get the fries,’ he heard Richie say.

‘And a milkshake.’ He caught Richie’s look and tossed his head. ‘A big one. Vanilla.’

‘Vanilla, huh,’ murmured Richie as the waitress clipped away. He leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Bit boring, don’t you think?’

‘Vanilla is not boring, it’s the best fucking flavour.’ He spoke without heat, distracted by the way Richie had put his arm down on the counter so that his bare elbow touched Eddie’s clothed one. His face was warm again.

‘Yeah, okay. Vanilla’s good, I like vanilla.’ Richie grinned, enjoying himself.

It didn’t take long for the food to arrive. It had been a long time since Eddie had eaten white carbs, longer still since he’d had fries, and at the first bite he groaned. ‘Oh, fuck. You weren’t kidding.’

‘Told you.’ Richie watched Eddie eat with plain enjoyment. When Eddie had finished he ran his finger along the grease- and salt-packed paper and, conscious of being observed, licked it. Richie’s eyes went gimlet.

‘I’m sorry I called you a skinny bitch earlier,’ Richie said. His breath was thin. Eddie felt again that spike of pleasure. He picked a crust of salt and watched Richie’s pupils blow up.

‘Don’t worry about it. I mean, you’re not wrong. I run a lot but I think I need to start doing some strength training. I turned thirty back in November. I need to start thinking about my back and joints.’

‘You look fine to me.’ Richie gave him a swiping look that made Eddie’s skin prickle. ‘I would say that, though. I live on pizza and ramen and if I go up more than one flight of stairs I feel like I’m gonna pass out.’ He leaned back and spread his arms. Eddie noticed again the weird articulation of his limbs, the way he didn’t seem to entirely inhabit his body. He noticed too the spread of his shoulders, the thick forearms. There was natural musculature there that would only improve as he matured. He understood that what he felt could not be explained entirely by envy.

The milkshake was nearly as good as the fries and Eddie removed the plastic cap so he could chug it. Afterward, wiping his mouth and pretending not to notice the way Richie watched him do it, he realised how urgently he needed to piss. In his distraction he had forgotten.

‘You wanna head out?’ Richie asked when Eddie got up from his seat. He sounded nearly anxious.  


‘I gotta piss.’ He thought about his phone and glanced out the window. The blizzard had stopped. The night glowed with the uncanny luminosity of settled snow. A sea of blue-white swept out toward the snow-limned trees and beyond that—blackness. He had again that sense of nothing existing outside of the diner, that there was no time here, and memories slipped like oil. ‘Then we can go for a walk, if you like.’

If Richie tried to hide his delight he did a poor job of it. When Eddie stepped away to go to the bathroom he felt fingers on the small of his back. It was a friendly nudge, something you might do to a small child; yet it sent a bolt of feeling rushing through Eddie like electricity. He hurried off, rabbit heart pounding.

The combined sensation of Richie’s hand on his back and his full bladder pressing against his pelvic floor was not unpleasant. The restroom was empty and Eddie took a moment in front of the urinal, perceiving the weight in his loins and the hot points where Richie had touched him. He gave his groin a gentle press. It made him whimper. It also made him want to urinate, and he undid his zipper and pissed long into the urinal. When he had done and shaken off and washed his hands at the sink there remained a residue of the sensation, a weight that wouldn’t shift. It was a feeling not so unfamiliar as to be unrecognisable, yet it was rare enough for Eddie to regard it as a novelty. Shyly, like he was handling a fierce, frightened animal, he reached down and squeezed his penis. It pulsed in his hand. After a moment he stepped into one of the cubicles.

He would have to act fast. He pulled down the toilet lid and swiped it with a Clorox wipe. Then he rubbed his hands clean. He’d worry about the effect of the disinfectant on his skin later. He dropped his pants but left his underwear on, queasy at the thought of his bare ass on the toilet lid. A shock of enamel cold shot through the backs of his thighs when he sat down. It made his groin ache and he was embarrassed, though not enough to stop from pulling his cock from out beneath the cotton band of his underwear. Red and thickening in his hand, he felt as though he had never seen it before.

He had nothing slick to work with but it didn’t matter, he wasn’t going to last long anyway. He began to pump his dick. He was slow at first but soon picked up speed. He was unbelievably sensitive, the dry motion of his fist as close to pain as it was pleasure. A pearl of fluid grew in the slit. When he swiped it with his thumb the shock made him moan and he had to stop his mouth with his knuckles. Another pulse of wet ran over his fingers. Already his balls were growing tight. He thought of Richie’s elbow touching his, of Richie watching him when he sucked the salt off his fingers, of Richie touching the small of his back; and with a sound his fist couldn’t stifle came hard, all over his pale narrow thighs.

He wiped himself down, first with toilet paper, then a Clorox wipe. He was careful to avoid the tender skin of his cock. Already he felt ashamed—and dirty, too. He rubbed his thighs till the skin turned red. He was close to tears. Richie was probably wondering what he was getting up to, and the thought of looking him in the face again made him feel so guilty he was momentarily angry at him. Who the fuck did he think he was, touching Eddie like that when they didn’t even know each other? But he couldn’t keep a hold of the anger. He washed his hands as long as he dared, then headed back into the diner.

‘Good shit?’ Richie asked when he walked up to the counter.

‘Fuck off.’

‘I’ll take that as a no. Faddy diet doing a number on your dietary fibre, huh? You should try corned beef and cabbage followed by eight Guinnesses, that’ll fix you right up. I did that one St Paddy’s and nearly turned myself inside out.’

‘Jesus, you’re unbearable. That’s the second time this evening you’ve mentioned shitting yourself to death.’ Already the shame was subsiding. He liked this man. He didn’t understand it—Eddie rarely liked anyone, much less rude schlubby assholes who talked about their bowels all the time—but there it was. He did. Too much, in fact. It saddened him that he would never see him again.

‘Still up for that walk?’ Richie was zipping up a shearling aviator jacket. It looked second-hand but fit his frame in a way the rest of his clothes did not. He balanced on the balls of his feet, thrumming with the excitable energy of a dog that had heard the sound of its leash. Eddie felt again that incredible urge to cry.

‘I’m sorry. I know I just said I would but I really think I should head while the weather’s good. I’ve still got a couple of hours driving ahead of me. More, in the snow.’

‘Oh.’ Richie’s disappointment was audible. The air went out of him and he seemed to shrink up in the coat.  _ This is weird _ , thought Eddie. Y _ ou don’t even know me, you shouldn’t be like this _ . But he felt it too. The warm diner was suddenly cold. His heart felt as though it were being squeezed in a fist. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, hating the inadequacy of the word.

‘Don’t worry about it, man. You’re right, you need to get home. I’ve held you up long enough already.’ Richie’s eyes tracked Eddie’s hand reaching into his pocket. ‘You don’t need to pay up, I already did.’

‘Dude.’ Eddie took in again the threadbare shirt, the second-hand coat. He didn’t look at the broken glasses, or the eyes behind them. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’

‘It’s fine, really. I made you get the fries.’

‘They were good fries.’ Eddie was thinking of his phone. He had a sudden vision of himself sitting in the cold little space of his car, retrieving the thing from the glovebox. _ Message received. Message received. Missed call. Missed call. Missed call. Message received. Redial.  _ Hi, Mom, sorry to call you so late, had to take a pitstop ‘Hey, you know what? For that, I’ll take the walk.’

‘I’m not fussy.’ The eager dog was back and any misgivings Eddie had had vanished. So what if the guy was weirdly keen? It must be nice, being this way about things. Eddie, who never felt excited about anything, thought how good it was to feel excited about anything at all.

After the tropical heat of the diner it was a shock to step back into the cold. Eddie felt like his cheeks had been slapped and raised his hands to hold them. ‘Jesus fuck my balls just retracted so hard they bounced off my kidneys,’ Richie said, jogging on his boot tips. He let out a foggy breath. Eddie watched it spiral up into the flawless, beat-iron sky. Were it not for the thick layer of untouched snow it would be hard to imagine the blizzard just minutes before. ‘Man, I should have thought harder about this. Swap coats with me?’

‘No chance. It’s Rogan & Marsh and you’re a fucking beast.’

‘Fair enough.’ Richie grinned, pink with pleasure. Eddie felt warmth pool low down in his stomach.

He’d always liked the sound of newly fallen snow underfoot and he enjoyed it now, the united crunching of their paired feet. As they headed away from the neon-lit diner and towards the scraggy black line of woods, he became conscious of the altered quality of light and turned his face. They were too close to the highway for there to be many stars, but he recognised the brilliant locus of the Dog Star and the faint buckshot of its attendant constellation. The full moon was magnificent. It scraped against the naked branches like some wounded thing, oozing silver. Eddie, who had known such things once, dug back in his memory for the name.

‘Hunger Moon,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’ Richie turned his face in Eddie’s direction. His eyes were obscured by the sheen of his lenses.

‘The February full moon. That’s one of the names for it.’

‘Oh.’ They both fell into silence, considering this, and while they considered it passed under the treeline.

‘You’re not a murderer or anything, are you?’ Eddie asked. He was fascinated by the crazy shadows the bare canopy cast on the white ground, but strangely unfrightened. Up ahead a twig snapped with a sound that cleaved the air.

‘Nope, just a failed stand-up comedian.’ Richie licked his lips. The tip of his tongue glistened like the pulp of a fruit. ‘What about you? You’re the imminent Wall Street bro. You could be Patrick Bateman for all I know.’

‘No room for a chainsaw in this thing,’ Eddie said blandly. ‘And I’d struggle to get the elevation required in any case. You’re safe for now.’

The sound of the distant highway had dulled to an almost inaudible hum. On the razor back of the cold, clear air, Eddie realised he could smell the ocean.

‘Are you taking us somewhere in particular?’ he asked. He took a long pull of the sea-tainted air, filling his lungs till they ached, till he was dizzy with it. He licked his lips and imagined he tasted salt.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t get you lost,’ Richie said.

‘Like you could.’ With the burr of the highway behind him and the smell of the ocean ahead, and the canopy of stars above and Richie by his side, Eddie had never felt more certain of his place. Without knowing why he did it, he reached over and touched Richie on the part of his back that Richie had touched him in the diner.

‘I’m getting married,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ Richie’s arm, which had been coming around Eddie, froze in midair. ‘I see.’

‘We got engaged at Christmas. Her name is Myra. She’s a pediatric nurse but she wants to cut her hours so she can spend more time looking after me. And the kids, I guess. That’s part of the reason I’m going for this job. So she can do that.’

‘You’ve got kids?’ The hand remained in its frozen position.

‘Not yet. Not till we’re married, Myra says.’

‘Is that what you want?’

‘It’s important to Myra,’ Eddie said, knowing it wasn’t an answer. From the corner of his eye he saw a few puffs of breath escape Richie’s lips, like he was thinking of saying something and biting it back. At last his arm came around Eddie’s back. Through the thick wool it felt marvellously warm. Eddie could sense the trapped energy of the hand, holding back the urge to stroke him. Eddie, feeling like a man who had never been touched before, found himself wishing he’d do it.

‘What about you?’ Eddie asked, as much to distract himself as anything. The weight in his loins had returned and with it the shame of what he had done. Talking about Myra had not helped. ‘Is there anybody in your life?’

‘Not likely.’ Richie snorted. ‘I’m… not a relationship sort of guy.’

‘Oh.’ Eddie wasn’t sure if what he was feeling was relief or disappointment. ‘More a love ‘em and leave ‘em type?’ he said, and felt immediately foolish.

‘Something like that.’ Richie stared straight ahead. His back was rigid, which brought him to his full height and removed his face from Eddie’s view. ‘Not much love. Not much of the other thing, either.’

Eddie felt a shock of affinity, an extraordinary impression of one heart recognising the other. He squeezed Richie’s arm. After a moment Richie squeezed back.

‘Me, neither,’ Eddie said.

Richie’s throat clicked. ‘Oh?’

‘I, uh…’ Eddie swallowed. He was suddenly frightened. He had the weird sense he was pulling back a curtain.  _ I don’t want to see what’s behind it,  _ he thought, stepping away, stepping back and averting his eyes. ‘I live with my mom.’

Richie gave an amused snort. ‘Ah. Shared wall?’

‘Yes,’ Eddie lied.

‘You should pull the bed away from the wall and lie diagonally across it. The mattress doesn’t make so much noise that way.’ Richie grinned, revealing the silvered strip of his overbite. ‘Or just fuck in your car.’

‘We don’t fuck anywhere. That’s another thing we’re waiting till marriage for.’

Richie bit his lip. ‘Is this a “we” like the having kids thing?’

‘Fuck you,’ Eddie snapped. ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but yes. It is. A joint decision, that is.’

That at least was true. Indeed, it had been Eddie who suggested it. Not that he was going to tell Richie that. An image flashed before his eyes: his wedding night, a rosy-lit room, Myra’s coy smile… he shoved it away. He didn’t want to think about that. That was Future Eddie’s problem.

‘Sure, fine. Whatever you say.’ Richie’s fingertips brushed Eddie’s elbow, light enough to be an accident if Eddie needed it to be. Eddie moved into the touch. He was trembling. Richie was too, but he thought it might be with cold. He pulled him closer, trying not to think too much of it, knowing only that Richie was cold and that he, Eddie, wanted it. He heard Richie inhale sharply. That at least had nothing to do with the cold. 

‘Here we are,’ Richie said.

They had stepped out into a large clearing. The unbroken moonlight was near-blinding after the woods, and for a second Eddie thought Richie had led him to a huge chasm in the ground. Then his eyes adjusted and he realised the thing he saw was in fact a frozen lake. He had never seen ice as flawless. It reflected the night sky so completely that it appeared an empty space until you saw the stars contained within it, the full fat moon.

‘How did you know this was here?’

‘I’ve been here a few days, kicked about a bit. I came across this place a couple of nights back. Wasn’t as pretty as tonight though.’

Eddie didn’t know what to say. Richie had led him here on purpose, knowing it would be beautiful. Nobody had ever given Eddie anything beautiful before. Unable to speak, he reached for Richie’s hand and slipped his fingers into his closed fist. Richie stood as though he’d grown roots. Then, without speaking, he threaded their fingers together.

They stood like that a long time. The silence was disturbed only by passing night creatures and the sound of Richie’s throat working. Eddie knew Richie wanted to kiss him. He wet his lips, waiting.

‘You ever see that movie  _ Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind _ ?’ he said instead.

‘What?’

‘ _ Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind _ . It’s got Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey in it. It’s about –.’

‘I know what it’s about.’ Eddie realised he’d been standing on his toes. He dropped his heels and heard the snow creak beneath them. ‘I had to stop watching when, like, Elijah Wood’s eyes were on upside down or whatever. That freaked me the fuck out.’ He remembered how unsettled he had been when he watched that movie, the sense of something working at his brain like the popping jaws of a cockroach. Yet he’d not thought of it since. 

‘That bit scared the shit out of me! But that wasn’t the bit I was thinking of.’

Suddenly Eddie’s hand was cupping cold air. Richie stepped out onto the ice. 

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘Literally testing the ice.’ Richie pressed one booted foot. ‘Seems good to me.’

‘Are you fucking kidding me? You’re from Maine, you definitely saw the PSAs.’

‘ _ And knowing is half the battle! _ ’ Richie stepped out with his other foot and stood, legs apart and arms akimbo, action pose. ‘Holy shit, wasn’t that dude’s name Snow Job? What the fuck?’

Eddie watched as he strode further out on the ice. His heart was beating hard; wildly, he imagined he heard splintering. ‘Dude, can you please get back here? I just met you, I am not running out onto broken ice to pull you out if you fall through.’ Yet he knew with absolute certainty he would.

‘Dude, it’s rock hard. Come out. Your Atkins ass won’t make a difference.’

‘Absolutely not.’ He watched as Richie, several yards away from the bank now, folded up and sat down. ‘What are you doing now?’

‘The movie,’ Richie said, and lay back on the ice. 

‘You’re a fucking idiot. Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey are fucking idiots. You’re a bunch of fucking idiots.’

‘I feel like a sea otter.’ Richie did something Eddie guessed was supposed to be an otter impression.

‘Dude, have you seen what killer whales do to those things? Clue’s in the na—.’ He was cut short by a sound like a gunshot. The frozen skyscape burst into a thousand pieces.

Richie barely had time to cry out before he vanished beneath the ice. Or half of him did, anyway. ‘Jesus Christ, my fucking ass!’ screamed the visible, loud, upper half. ‘I froze my fucking ass!’

‘No fucking kidding!’ Eddie screamed back. His heart was pounding with fright. He stepped forward then stopped himself. ‘You dick! You complete fucking shit-for-brains!’

‘Oh my god, it’s so slimy!’

‘You’re sitting in duck shit, you fucking dipshit! Fucking, duck shit and fish shit and –,’ he struggled to think of something else that lived in lakes. ‘ _ Cichlid shit! _ ’

‘Cichlids are fish, you crazy bitch! Jesus Chris, my balls. My fucking dick! Help me the fuck up!’

‘I will not.’

After a few aborted attempts Richie managed to get to his feet. He pushed through the broken ice, grumbling with effort and pain. Muddy water sloshed over the smashed up surface of the lake. There was a stench of churned pond rot which Richie carried with him onto the bank.

‘Jesus Christ.’

Eddie hurried him over to the treeline where the snowy earth was comparatively clean and dry. Richie was shaking hard. When Eddie pulled his sheepskin off it streamed with filthy water. He flung it to the ground.

‘I think you’re supposed to take all your clothes off,’ Eddie said apologetically.

‘Any excuse,’ Richie chattered, without much heart.

At least he was only half-wet. Eddie stripped off his own wool coat and hung it from a branch. Then he took his suit jacket off. At once he felt pared by the bitter air. 

‘You’re gonna ruin that,’ Richie said when Eddie began to scrub at him with the jacket.

‘I don’t care. My mom got me it, I don’t really like it.’ He looked up at Richie. ‘Like you guessed.’

Richie made a small grunt, submitting to Eddie’s furious scouring. Soon the suit jacket was soaking and Richie less so. He wasn’t shivering as much either. Eddie threw the jacket into the trees. He felt bad for nature but was unwilling to carry the squalid thing back to his car. He kicked Richie’s coat after it. If anyone ever came across them they would wonder what had happened. None would guess a man had fallen through the ice pretending to be Kate Winslet.

‘Hey, I like that coat.’

‘Dude, that thing is unrescueable. Even if you ever did manage to shift the smell, the stain won’t lift.’ Eddie retrieved the Clorox wipes from his pocket and passed a handful to Richie.

‘I’ve been wondering what that stink was all night.’

‘You smell like a goose’s ass,’ Eddie said shortly. He cleaned his hands. ‘I’ve got a germ thing.’

‘No shit.’

Richie poked dolefully at himself until Eddie, impatient, took back the wipes and did it himself. When he was done Richie’s skin was pink under the blanching moon.

‘This is the weirdest date I’ve ever been on,’ Richie said. Eddie ignored him. He didn’t like the way Richie was still shivering in his soaking boots and jeans.

‘Here,’ he said, and without further warning took Richie in his arms.

Eddie had always ran hot. Now he pressed that heat into Richie, aiming for the core of him. The other man went absolutely still. Eddie held him tighter.

It was impossible not to appreciate Richie’s size like this. Eddie, on the normal side of short, paid little attention to the fact that men were bigger than him. Most were, after all. Only on a handful of occasions had he really noticed—and he was just beginning to realise why. He could feel the largeness of Richie’s bones shifting beneath his skin like timbers, the fat and muscle of his fleshy body. He knew that if he were to place his cheek on Richie’s broad chest he would hear the gigantic pump of his heart. He wondered if it would be going as fast as his own. He thought of the restroom back at the diner, felt the ghost imprint of his hand on his cock. But the shame he’d known then did not return.

When Richie’s arms came around Eddie’s shoulders something moved within him, an old forgotten thing. Richie’s grip was light, like he didn’t quite dare complete it.  _ Hold me properly,  _ Eddie wanted to say. _ Squeeze me till you break my bones. _ But he didn’t say it, and Richie did not squeeze him; yet a pain shot through Eddie’s arm all the same.

Eddie heard Richie lick his lips. His throat clicked, as it had on the bank of the lake. He knew, as he had then, that Richie wanted to kiss him. He also knew, though he didn’t know how, that Richie would not do it, that—astonishingly—Richie would never be able to make the first move. So he did the only thing he could.

He couldn’t reach him properly from this angle so it was Richie’s throat he kissed. Stubble pricked his lips. Richie turned his face to his. Eddie gauged Richie’s stunned expression for just a second before he surged up to his mouth. It took Richie a moment to catch on, then he opened his mouth to let Eddie in. Eddie had never kissed anyone like this before, and was scared he didn’t know how. But some creature instinct took over. He found himself sliding his tongue against the tender rim of Richie’s lip, drawing his moan into his throat.

If Richie hadn’t had the courage to kiss Eddie first now he more than met him. It was Richie who raised up his hands and held Eddie’s face, Richie who turned them around and backed Eddie against a tree. He could feel the bark through his shirt. He grabbed at Richie’s hair, whimpering when lips found his neck. Richie’s hands were on his chest, pinning him in place. Eddie felt his nipples sharpen beneath the big flat palms. Then the hands were slip-sliding down his flanks and under his ass, and the next thing Eddie knew he was being lifted. He loved that. _ Loved  _ it _. _ He scrabbled for purchase on the tree trunk and hooked his legs round Richie’s back. He could feel Richie’s dick through his wet pants, not yet hard (perhaps he was too cold?) but a distinct mass, fat and promising. Eddie had never had a thought like that before. Now it all but consumed him.

_ He might try to fuck me, _ Eddie thought hysterically. He imagined Richie wrenching down his pants, shoving his thick, dry cock in him.  _ If he fucks me, I won’t try to stop him. _

But Richie only kissed him. He kissed him like he was trying to open him up, like he was taking Eddie apart piece by piece. Eddie could hear himself making small animal noises. There was a large patch of wet where their bodies met and the pond water leached through; and another—smaller, warmer—growing on the inside of his underwear.

‘What the fuck was that?’

Eddie had a half-second to wonder at the shrill, womanish shrieking before Richie’s hands vanished from under his ass and deposited him unceremoniously into the snow. Brushing his pants down he cocked an ear to listen. A second later the banshee wail started up again.

‘What the fuck.’ Richie’s eyes were black with fright. ‘Sounds like someone’s getting killed out there!’

‘I think it’s some kind of animal,’ Eddie said uncertainly. They listened and the shrieking turned into yelping, a wet sort of snarling. ‘Yeah, I don’t think that’s a person.’

‘What the fuck. I hate the fucking wilderness.’

‘This is hardly the wilderness.’

‘Yeah, well. If I was back in New York that would absolutely have been someone getting murdered. You know where you stand in New York.’

‘You’re really selling it to me.’ Eddie watched Richie shivering where he stood. The pimpled texture of his skin cast mottled grey shadows on his moon-wan flesh. ‘Dude, we need to get you somewhere warm before you go hypothermic.’

They trudged in silence through the snow, each wrapped in his own thoughts. Eddie could feel his blood sliding under his skin. His lips were tender and hurt. He licked them, missing the prickle of Richie’s beard, the faint cigarette and coffee taste of his mouth. He remembered how expertly he had opened him, like Eddie was an oyster for swallowing. His skin prickled all over again. He stepped closer to Richie, wanting him.

By the time they reached the motel parking lot the moon was obscured by a cloud. What magical quality there had been in the evening gone with it. Eddie was aware that Richie had put distance between them. He was sad, but not surprised. He had allowed himself to want something; now came the punishment. As per fucking usual.

‘This is my room,’ Richie said when they drew up to one of the doors. 

‘Yeah, okay.’ Eddie licked his mouth again, the ferrous taste of raw skin. ‘I—well. I guess I should head off.’

‘You wanna—.’ Richie swallowed and squelched in his wet boots. ‘I mean, I don’t have coffee? So I can’t offer you that. But. I’ve got central heating. If you, um. Want that?’

_ He’s worse at this than I am, _ Eddie thought in amazement. Something reached across the space between them, palpable as an extended arm, an open palm. He wondered at the feeling, at once brand new and very old. He knew he had never felt anything like this before, he would have remembered. Yet it was as familiar as his own face. 

In all his thirty years Eddie had never stepped foot in any sort of hotel room, much less a motel. Everything he knew of such places he’d gotten from television and movies and his mother’s warnings. Blackflies, cockroaches, mysterious bodystains in the mattress.  _ Bedbugs.  _ A sort of oppressive, spermy unhappiness. So in a sense he was pleasantly surprised by the room he stepped into. Certainly there was nothing beautiful about it. The orange-based palette was an optical assault for sure, and the carpet worn down to the plastic underlay in parts like the fur of a mangy dog. But there was no sign of vermin and, though a little unaired, the prevailing smell was of wholesale cleaning products. All in all, the room was ugly, but not dirty or seedy as Eddie had dreaded. An unbeautiful room but practical, a between-place or crossroads between worlds. Like the diner.

Looking closer he detected the signs of Richie’s residence. In one corner of the room was a medium-sized suitcase. Several empty pizza boxes were crammed into a garbage can. A couple of shirts had been slung over the back of the room’s one chair like colourful skins. There was a yellow drycleaner receipt safety-pinned to one. The small queen bed was body-rumpled and one or two dark hairs curled on the pillowcase. On the nightstand was an MP3 player, a half-filled glass of water, and a Denbrough novel Eddie had read and disliked.

‘How long have you been here?’ Eddie asked.

‘Few days.’ Richie shrugged in a way that didn’t quite disguise that he was avoiding something. He bent down to undo his boots. ‘Not planning on being here much longer.’

‘No. What are you doing up here anyway?’

‘Vacation, duh.’ Richie paused a second to step out of his squashy boots then looked up. ‘I’m moving.’

‘You’re moving.’ Eddie felt his gut open up. ‘Away? From New York?’

‘Yup. L.A. Gonna try out sunny Cali. Friend of mine has a couch I can surf and someone I worked with thinks she can get me a job on a set she’s working on. A pretty good opportunity, actually, chance to meet all the right people, schmooze a bit, whatever. Got a good feeling about it and my good feelings usually amount to something. If nothing else, the weather’s better.’

‘You’re moving from New York to L.A. and you’re going via New Hampshire.’ You didn’t need a built-in compass to figure that didn’t add up.

‘Yeah, well. Thought I’d check in on the folks while I was at it.’

‘Right.’ Eddie sensed Richie was uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was taking and left it there. He knew all about difficult parents. In any case he hadn’t come here to give Richie the first degree, he’d come here to—well. His pulse beat in his ears, deafening him.

‘So.’ Richie looked as uncertain as Eddie felt. ‘Please—make yourself at home. There’s a… chair, if you want it.’

Richie waved at the chair, then leapt over to move the shirts over onto the dressing table. Their eyes locked in the landscape mirror.  _ His socks don’t match _ , Eddie thought, not looking at them. _ His socks don’t match and I want him so much. _

‘Uh.’ Richie cleared his throat and tried again. ‘I’m—I’m really fucking cold. I’m going to shower and get warmed up and then—.’ His jaw snapped shut. He waved at the chair again.

‘I’m cold too,’ Eddie said.

‘Sorry?’ It was difficult to describe what Richie’s face was doing.

‘I’m cold too. I’d like to get warm too.’ Then, because he couldn’t help himself. ‘Please.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, of course.’

Richie stood like someone had nailed his feet into the floorboards and Eddie knew, as he had known before, that it must be him. When he stepped towards Richie the other man straightened up to his full height. Trying to get himself out the way. Out of Eddie’s reach. Yet when Eddie laid his hands on his shoulders he did not flinch. A gust of air escaped his lungs when Eddie hitched his thumbs under the pink button-down. Peeling the damp shirt off he heard the creak of his rounding shoulders.

‘Your turn,’ Eddie said, dropping his hands.

‘Yeah, alright.’

Richie went down on his knees. The breath evaporated from Eddie’s lungs. He caught it again when Richie’s fingers touched his laces. He undid them one at a time then carefully lifted each foot, slipping loose the shoe, cupping the heel in his big hand. Eddie was struck by his gentleness. When he had done Richie rose back to his feet. He had only touched Eddie’s socked feet, yet it was like Eddie’s nerves had been drawn on fishlines to the surface of his skin.

Eddie’s turn. He thought about Richie’s belt but didn’t dare, his mismatched socks but was too impatient. He needed his nerve-lit skin on Richie’s. He shoved his hands under the soaked edge of Richie’s Incredible Hulk t-shirt, seeking flesh.

‘Holy cold hands, asshole!’

‘Shut up. Get this ugly thing off.’ He tugged at the shirt.

‘Hulk style?’ Richie stretched his chest so the seams paled.

‘Stop showing off,’ Eddie grumbled, swallowing drily. Richie beamed with pleasure.

Richie’s flesh was pale and hairy. He had a small scruffy belly which Eddie loved immediately. The shoulders rounded inwards. Eddie braced his hands against them and pushed them back apart.

‘Don’t do that. I want to look at you.’

‘Pervert.’ Richie’s breath whistled in his nostrils. ‘Only if you let me look at you too.’

Richie’s hands were shaking and after a half-minute of him fumbling Eddie’s shirt buttons Eddie pushed him away and did it himself. When he reached for his tie Richie stopped him. ‘Leave that for me.’ He pushed the shirt off of Eddie’s shoulders then slipped loose the half-windsor his mom had tied that morning. Eddie felt exposed, raw, an ugly pale shucked thing.

‘Holy shit.’ Richie cupped the bone of Eddie’s hip. ‘You’re really something else.’

‘Are you making fun of me?’

‘What? Dude, what the fuck. Of course not.’ He circled Eddie’s hip with his big warm hand. ‘Seriously. You’re something else. You’re perfect. I’m not kidding.’

He wasn’t, either. Eddie could tell. Astonished he let Richie touch him, tracing his narrow stomach and thin, nearly hairless chest with his fingertips.

‘I wanted you the second I saw you. Your eyes—your eyebrows! Your serious little face. That stupid fucking pinky ring! No fucking doubt about it. Seriously. My heart fell out of my ass.’

‘I like men,’ Eddie said, feeling like he was having a cardiac event. ‘I didn’t realise it until tonight. Then you put your hand on me, in the diner, on my back. And I knew it.’

‘I’ve known since forever. Talked a lot of shit about the girls I’ve had in my stand-up but it’s all B.S. Always known what I wanted. Nothing like this though. I feel like—.’

‘I feel like I’ve known you forever.’

‘Yes! You sat next to me and I was like, do I know this guy? Then you looked at me. Holy shit. It’s never been like this before. What the fuck.’

They kissed with a need that verged on brutality. Richie, hands on Eddie’s hips, steered him to the bed. The cheap linen was cold against Eddie’s back. Bracketing him with his body, Richie licked deeply into his mouth. Eddie could feel Richie’s dick through his jeans, scratting at the join between his pelvis and thigh. His mouth came loose and dropped to the tender spot below Eddie’s ear. He felt like he might jump out of his skin.

‘Please. Rich. Oh god, fuck me. I need you to fuck me.’

Richie’s mouth went still on his throat. Eddie whined, grinding his dick into his leg. Richie closed his teeth round the rim of his ear. Eddie could’ve come in his pants right there.

‘You’ve never done this before, right?’

‘What?’ Eddie’s skin bristled. ‘Dude, I just said!’

‘I’m not saying I’m not gonna.’ Richie sat back on his heels. Eddie wanted to cry with frustration. ‘But I want to do this properly. First: shower. No, shut the fuck up. You said yourself, I’m covered in duck shit and we’re both freezing. So we’re going to shower. Then we can take all the time we need to make this as awesome as you deserve.’

‘And you,’ Eddie said quickly.

Richie snorted. ‘Dude. An insanely hot guy just walked into a diner and demanded I take his gay virginity. Tonight’s going swimmingly for me already.’

‘You’re super hot too!’ Eddie snapped, offended. ‘And I don’t want this to be all about me. What do you want?’

‘I just want someone to like, want me. For me,’ Richie said offhandedly. He scorched bright red. ‘Aw, dude, sorry. What a thing to—seriously, forget that, please. Or like. Drive me to the shore so I can walk into the ocean. Fuck.’

_ I could do that,  _ Eddie thought. _I could want him like he wants me to want him._ He knew he should find it weird. But he could do it. It would be easy. So long as he didn’t have to say it. He didn’t have the words, not yet. But he could show him.

Eddie drew Richie’s hands to his mouth. ‘Look at me,’ he said when Richie tried to avert his eyes, and kissed the tips of his fingers. Then he kissed his knuckles. Richie’s breath came thin. He watched as Eddie turned over his hands and kissed the soft flesh of his palms and wrists too. ‘You deserve this too.’

‘Fuck.’ Richie reached up to swipe at his eyes. He coughed. ‘Uh. We should get that shower, huh.’

They were oddly shy stripping the last of their clothes off together. Eddie was careful not to look at the dick which, minutes before, had been dry-humping the crease of his trousers. He heard Richie put his glasses down on the sink. Then came the squeak of his feet hitting the bath enamel.

‘You coming?’

Eddie was shaking when he stepped into the shower. He kept his eyes averted, jumping when Richie touched his upper arms. ‘Whoa there, Flicka.’ He led him under the water. Eddie, collapsing like a blancmange, realised how cold he had been.

Richie washed himself with vigorous abandon. ‘You’re going to lose your hair if you keep using bodywash in it like that,’ Eddie said, but there was no venom in it. Richie stuck his tongue out and flicked foam at him, before going to town on his pubes until he looked like a sudsy Adam.

‘Want me to scrub you up, sexy?’ Richie made soapy bear claws.

‘Hm.’ Eddie submitted. He loved Richie’s big slick hands on him, getting between his shoulders and down the backs of his legs. He loved the way Richie lingered on the bits he liked best.

Richie’s mouth touched the crease at the top of his leg. He shivered like a fly-bothered horse. A thumb found the delicate flesh of his inner thigh, just shy of the perineum, and settled there. ‘You want this?’ Richie asked. He kissed the other leg. Eddie felt the whisper of his tongue there.

‘Yes,’ he said.

Eddie heard the snap of something being opened. ‘Put your hands on the wall,’ Richie said. The tiles were slippery and cool. Eddie bent his face. Water struck the back of his skull. He shut his eyes. The water ran down his cheekbones and converged, forming a stream down his nose that gurgled into the drain between his feet. His eyelashes were matted and heavy. ‘Part your legs.’

Richie touched him. One finger, slick-tipped and gentle, set up a slow circling. It was wonderful. It was torture. 

‘Sensitive little thing aren’t you,’ Richie hummed in an interested way. He pressed the spot between Eddie’s balls and ass with his thumb. It had a calloused edge. Eddie sucked air between his teeth.

‘Ah. Um. I should probably mention something.’

‘Hm?’ Richie pressed a kiss between Eddie’s legs. Stubble grazed his inside thighs, the backs of his balls. Eddie turned his face into the crook of his elbow.

‘This is, um. The first time.’

‘Yeah, you already said.’ The circling motion of Richie’s finger had switched to a back-and-forth slide. Slowly he began to breach the flesh. Eddie could feel his breath, hot and steady against his skin.

‘No. I mean it’s not just, uh. My gay virginity at stake here.’

‘Oh.’ To his credit Richie did not stop. Eddie would not have been responsible for his actions if he had. ‘Right.’

‘For the sake of, you know. Transparency.’

‘Yeah, of course.’ Richie’s free hand came around Eddie’s thigh; with something like affection, he squeezed the tensed muscle there. ‘You know, ordinarily I’d be like, that’s a lot of pressure. But—no offence or anything—I feel like you’re maybe gonna go easy.’

‘None taken. Pretty sure I’m gonna pop off the second you get your finger in there.’

Richie laughed appreciatively. He nuzzled Eddie’s coccyx and gave it a biting kiss. ‘Yeah, your ass is pretty much eating my finger here.’

‘What a beautiful image.’

‘Dude, it’s your ass.’ He plopped another kiss onto the point of Eddie’s tailbone. ‘You know, seeing as we’re in agreement here, how about we like, do it on purpose? Get you off good and quick I mean.’

‘Um,’ Eddie said.

‘Seeing as it sounds like you’re owed a few. Seems only fair. Then, later, we can take our time.’

‘Oh, god.’ Richie had licked a stripe right over his own knuckles and up the crack of Eddie’s ass. He could hardly speak. ‘So, um, more transparency?’

‘Go on.’

‘I may have, uh. Already got off.’

‘Dude, what? When?’ Richie thought. ‘The tree?’

‘No, although yeah. Nearly. The diner.’

‘What the fuck?’ Richie actually stopped what he was doing this time. Eddie supposed he deserved that.

‘Yeah. When you touched my back in the diner. I had to go to the bathroom and, uh. See to myself.’

‘Wow.’ Richie blinked hard. ‘So it wasn’t just a giant shit then.’

‘Jesus christ, you actually never stop. No, it wasn’t a giant shit, it was a giant— _ ejaculation _ .’ Eddie didn’t know why he whispered it. They were definitely past that point now.

‘Fuck. Well, wow. That’s all I can say to that.’

‘Are you okay?’ Eddie felt a shadow of misgiving cross him.

‘Yeah I’m okay! I just. Don’t usually have that effect on people.’

‘I already said. I’m really into you.’

‘I guess so!’ He felt Richie lean his warm cheek against him. ‘Fuck. That image is never leaving me. That’s going right into the spank bank. When I’m eighty and I’ve got Alzheimer’s I’m still gonna be jacking my soft shrivelled dick to that memory.’

‘What a delight you’ll be to the poor minimum wage carers. I hope they put you down.’ Eddie nudged back into him. ‘Though I’ll beat them to it, if you don’t get your finger in my ass, like, yesterday.’

‘Yessir. Though at this rate I’m going off way before you.’ And he sucked a kiss into a place no one would see it.

Eddie had done this to himself. He’d read somewhere it was good for prostate health and Eddie was all for doing things that were good for his health (in retrospect, what a stupid fucking baby). It had never felt like this.

‘Wo-ahh,’ he moaned into his elbow.

‘You like that, gorgeous?’

Eddie nodded violently, eyes squeezed shut. He couldn’t speak.

‘Yeah you do. Such a good boy. That’s your prostate, by the way.’

‘I know it’s my fucking prostate,’ he spat. Richie laughed. ‘Oh, fuck. I’m gonna come. I'm gonna come and I’m gonna make such a fucking mess.’

‘See if you can hold on a little longer.’

Eddie cried into his arm. When Richie knocked his feet further apart and slid another finger in, he had to bite himself.

‘I can’t do it,’ he gritted round a mouthful of his own flesh.

‘Yeah you can. Don’t touch yourself. Keep your hands on the wall.’ Eddie felt Richie’s tongue on him again, lapping between his spread knuckles. ‘Gonna work you good and open. Make you come on my fingers. Then I’m gonna fuck you.’

Eddie whined. Despite the running shower he could tell how wet he was. There was a pressure building at the base of his dick, the place Richie’s thumb was rested. He wished he had something he could bury his hands in. He needed to pull something right the fuck apart.

Richie pushed another finger in.

‘Oh, fuck!’ Eddie shouted, and came hard.

He stood a while, hands on the wall, shivering and breathing and riding out the aftershocks. Richie leaned across him to switch off the shower and kick the last of the jizzy water down the drain. His hand touched Eddie’s back. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.’

‘Come on.’

Richie led him out the shower. He flung a towel around him, bundled him into his arms and rubbed him vigorously. Soon enough Eddie was making happy grumbles. He turned his face into Richie’s chest. He didn’t want to be looked at just yet.

‘Sure you’re good?’ Richie asked, hugging him.

‘I’m fine. Better than fine. It’s just that I think I blew my brain out my dick.’

Richie laughed and Eddie felt it in his chest. ‘Yeah, it’s like that sometimes.’

‘I feel so fucking relaxed. I don’t want to fight anyone. What the fuck.’

Richie tipped his chin up. The edge was off and the kiss he gave him was warm and luxurious.

‘Your hair’s dripping on me,’ Eddie grumbled.

‘Ah, there’s fighting Eddie, back from the dead. Come on then. Bed.’

‘But I don’t wanna go to bed,’ Eddie whined.

‘Yeah you do.’

Oh, that was right. There was more. He could have more.

On the bed Richie resumed what he’d left off at the lake, where he’d opened Eddie up and took him apart. He began with his mouth, till it was raw and wet and tasted of pennies, and his throat where he was careful not to leave marks. When he kissed Eddie’s thin chest and stomach Eddie really believed he loved them like he said he did. Finding Eddie’s dick still worked out, he sucked it back to fullness.

‘God,’ Eddie said.

‘Hm?’ Richie’s face looked up from where he’d been tonguing Eddie’s balls with what seemed for all the world like total enjoyment. There was a pube on his chin. Ridiculously, Eddie was embarrassed.

‘I’m just—here, sit up a second.’ Richie did. Eddie groaned. ‘Yeah. Yeah, it hasn’t got any smaller.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Your dick. It’s still the same size as before.’

‘I should think so,’ Richie said.

‘No, I mean—dude, your dick is huge.’

Richie smirked. ‘Just call me the BBC Tower, baby!’

‘The Hanscom Monstrosity, you mean.’ Eddie narrowed his eyes. ‘Seriously though. Look at the size of me.’ Eddie waved at himself. ‘Now look at that.’ He pointed at Richie’s dick. ‘Can you see the problem? That thing needs a health advisory slapped on it. You’re gonna split me in two.’

‘You’re gonna need a bigger butt,’ Richie growled. ‘Dude, there’s a bunch of other stuff we can do if you’d rather skip the meat course.’ He gave the head of Eddie’s cock a tempting lick.

‘Fuck you! I do not want to “skip the fucking meat course”,’ Eddie snarled.

Richie looked bewildered. ‘Then what do you—?’

‘You think I’m gonna let you carry that fucking— _ weapon _ —round with you for what, fucking aesthetic purposes? I want your dick in my ass. I want you to fuck me blind. You’re going to fuck me with that dick even if it kills me.’

‘Then what was all that about?’ Confusion and delight waged war on Richie’s face.

‘I just wanted you to know it’s inconvenient is all,’ Eddie said pertly. ‘Your huge dick, I mean.’

‘You’re a crazy bitch,’ said Richie. But he said it like he meant something else entirely.

Richie kissed Eddie while he fingered him, till he was loose and lax and gentle again. ‘I don’t want you to worry about getting hurt,’ he said, dropping kisses onto the corner of Eddie’s mouth. ‘I’ll not hurt you. But the offer’s there. We can do something else. Take our time. Work up to the other thing. This doesn’t have to be a one time thing.’

‘What do you mean?’ Eddie sat up on his elbows.

‘I mean, if you wanted? We could meet up again some time.’

‘You’re moving to the other side of the country,’ Eddie said.

‘Same country.’ He kissed Eddie’s throat, putting his face where Eddie couldn’t see it.

‘We’ve not even had sex yet. And you don’t know me.’

‘I know that. Sometimes you just—.’ Richie sat up and shrugged. ‘Never mind. Forget about it.’

‘I don’t want to forget about it.’ Eddie could see Richie was upset. He pulled him back down and kissed him. ‘Look, we’ll talk about it. After. When you can be sure… I don’t want to be a disappointment to you.’

‘I don’t think you could be.’ And he spread him back out again, and broke him open, again.

After Richie had worked on Eddie a while longer he sat back up on his haunches. ‘All right. I think you’re as good as you’re gonna be. Ready?’

‘Ready.’ Eddie’s heart hammered against his ribs.

‘Front or back?’

‘On my back, please.’  _ So you can kiss me, _ he didn’t add.

Richie slid a pillow under Eddie’s ass. Then he leaned across him and took a sealed condom from the nightstand. Eddie grabbed his wrist.

‘Not that. I want you to….’ He struggled for the words. ‘Rawdog me?’

‘What the fuck?’ Richie burst into laughter. ‘Who taught you that?’

Eddie blushed. ‘Fuck you! That’s the term, right?’

‘I mean it gets the point across, but….’ The grin on Richie’s face softened. ‘Dude, didn’t you say you had, like, a germ thing?’

‘Yeah.’ Eddie couldn’t keep from pouting. ‘But, like. I want you to come. In me.’

‘I would like that very much also! But you can do that with one of these.’ Richie waved the foil.

‘It’s not the same,’ Eddie whined. He didn’t know why he wanted it, only that he did. He knew it with a certainty that was extraordinary given he hadn’t even known he wanted to have sex with men until about two hours ago. But Richie wasn’t wrong about the germ thing.

‘For the record I’m clean,’ Richie said, reading his face. ‘I get tested on the regular. There was one time, a few years back when I was like, right in the swing of my low-grade depression and doing some really dumb shit. But I got that sorted out. I mean, everyone gets chlamydia, right?’

‘Not everyone,’ Eddie said, feeling left out.

‘Yeah, well, you’re pure as the driven snow. And that’s not a bad thing! But what I’m saying is I’m clean but like, we’re strangers, so you probably shouldn’t trust me on that.’ Richie thought a moment before adding, unconvincingly, ‘And me you.’

‘We probably should have had this conversation before you started eating my dick. You can get some STIs in your throat, you know.’

‘I know! That’s one of the two places I got chlamydia!’

‘Where was the other one?’ Eddie asked before he could stop himself.

‘My butt!’ Richie replied cheerfully, unbothered by Eddie’s egregious lack of personal boundaries.

‘How did you—?’ Eddie cut himself off.

‘What do you mean, how?’ Richie examined Eddie’s mortified face and burst into laughter. ‘Holy shit. You’re really fucking new to this, huh? You thought I was too manly to take it up the ass?’

‘Fuck off,’ Eddie said.

‘You’re adorable. And you’re gonna have some real fucking surprises.’ The smile on Richie’s face faded. ‘You do know I’m kidding, right? Like, I’m making fun of you. It’s actually really nice to talk to someone who doesn’t know his way around yet and isn’t like, super fucking bored of the whole thing. The usual type I end up, uh. Talking to.’

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘I really fucking like you.’

‘Yes,’ said Eddie, and knew it.

‘So…,’ A corner of Richie’s mouth slid up his face. ‘Does that mean I can bottom?’

‘Absolutely no fucking way.’

Richie’s face nearly broke in two, he laughed so hard. ‘Aww,’ he said, making a poor effort at disappointment.

‘And you’re not going to like, try and put me off because your dick is so gigantic or whatever.’’ Eddie tossed his head, enjoying himself. ‘Maybe I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m a grown-ass adult and if I want to jump in ass-first and have my ass pounded, you’re gonna do it. That’s up to me.’

‘That’s a lot of asses in this conversation about ass,’ said Richie. When he kissed Eddie again he was still laughing and Eddie, close to tears, felt more liked than he ever had. ‘Alright! Let’s do this. With a sensible rubber, of course. Don’t want you freaking out mid-ass pounding.’

It did hurt. Richie was slow and gentle with him, in a way Eddie wished he didn’t need; but it  _ did  _ hurt. Yet it had been a day for learning things and Eddie was amazed to find he liked it. The pain. He liked the low grinding burn of it. It grounded him in the moment, and for what seemed the first time in his life that constant, anxious, low level chatter in his brain—usually his mother’s voice, sometimes his own, or Myra’s—subsided to something less than a mutter. He knew only Richie’s weight on him, in him, filling his body and his head. He heard himself cry out.

‘Are you okay?’ Richie asked.

‘I am.’

Like this their faces were level. Richie leaned down to kiss him. The movement shifted the position and Eddie found himself shouting again, a different sort of sound, right into Richie’s smiling mouth.  


Richie began to move, a steady, slow back-and-forth. The pain had subsided almost completely. Eddie felt like liquid, like something that could be cut with a spoon. The movement of Richie’s thighs against his own was delicious, that scratch of hair on skin. He loved Richie’s hands on his ass, lifting him, thumbs placed just so, parting him like fruit. He felt wonderfully, unbearably filled. There was just him and Richie here. Nothing else could get in.

He was conscious of a low sensation, building deep and luxurious. It was not like the shower where it had come upon him like a gunshot. It was a long way off yet, but he already understood it was different. It hadn’t occurred to him before that they could be different. Greedily, he pressed into Richie, pulling on him, urging him to go faster, keen to find out what this one would be like. But Richie didn’t bite. He carried on the steady, slow, patient fucking. Frustrated, Eddie squirmed—then looked up into Richie’s face and saw he too was suffering. With a shock of affection he realised that Richie knew what it was Eddie needed. Even Eddie didn’t know what Eddie needed.

‘Kiss me,’ he said. He remembered that Richie had wanted to feel wanted. Opening his mouth he let Richie in, let him fill him up—and craned his neck to meet him and fill him too. Driving one heel into the bed so he could lift his hips, flinging the other around Richie’s backside to bring him deeper, he scrambled for his hands. Undoing them from his hips he brought Richie to his elbows, that great, solid weight down onto his chest. It drove the air out of his body and into Richie’s. Drunk with anoxia and excitement and something else besides, he wound their fingers together.

‘Eds,’ Richie said, quiet.

‘Don’t call me Eds,’ Eddie said. Richie’s hips stuttered. For a moment Eddie knew what the forgotten words were. They crammed up behind his teeth and filled his throat. He opened his mouth—and Richie was there, filling it, drawing the words from him and into himself. He trembled against him, with a feeling older than language, so ancient only the body could begin to describe it. 

‘I feel like I know you!’ Richie said.

‘You do, you do,’ Eddie said, again and again, exultant, a kiss for each emphatic repetition.

At last Richie’s patience had run its course. He grabbed Eddie’s calf and swung it over his shoulder; when Eddie insisted, he pulled the other one up, too. Eddie yanked him down to kiss him again. ‘You bend like a fucking pretzel,’ Richie growled appreciatively.

‘Hypermobility. Now shut up and fuck me. And kiss me while you do it.’

‘Tell me if I’m hurting you,’ Richie said, beginning to gather speed.

‘No,’ said Eddie.

If he had felt filled before it was nothing compared to this. One of Richie’s hands was behind Eddie’s knee, pinning his leg to his chest, forcing him open while he drove down into him. With the other he pumped Eddie’s cock. Eddie pushed fiercely back. His body astonished him. It had always been nothing more than a necessary evil, a flesh machine with its sleeper agents of cancer, arthritis, infection. Now it was revealed in its animal capacity. He understood, newly, its resilience, its aptitude for pleasure. Nerves sparking, tissues ripening with blood, muscles engaged and pushing back. He had not known his body could give him this. He felt overwhelmed with gratitude.

Tilting his head back over the edge of the bed Eddie caught sight of himself in the mirror. He did not recognise his own face. In the low-watt lamplight he was cast in an antique palette of bold red-tinted shadows and lustrous bronze. There was a damp golden sheen on his chest and neck and in the tacky line of his hair. Scorched cheeks, upturned lips cleaved and raw. The eyes looking back were an unfocused animal black. Richie, beheaded by the edge of the mirror, a thrusting body, barely human.

He turned back to Richie, needing to see him. His breath was coming fast; Eddie could feel his thighs shaking. He looked vulnerable without his glasses, and squeezed his eyes shut like he knew it. Eddie raised his hands to hold his face. ‘Look at me, sweetheart,’ he said, the endearment coming freely. ‘I want to see you when you come.’

A sob tore itself free from Richie’s throat. He opened his eyes, just long enough to lock gazes with Eddie. When he came the noise he made was almost like fear. Eddie had a moment to appreciate the sensation of Richie’s cock throbbing inside his body before he followed him, spine describing an arch, pulsing between their sticky skins.

They were both quiet while they got their breaths back, eyes riveted on each other. After what seemed a long while Richie kissed Eddie and slid free. Eddie hissed between his teeth, shuddering deliciously. Richie kissed him again and although Eddie wanted to clean himself he let him, opening his mouth, enjoying the slow unwinding of his body, like an engine cooling or a house settling. Richie’s face tasted of salt—sweat, he supposed, or perhaps tears. Moved by this thought he brought his arms around him. _ I want you. _

‘Hm, this is very nice,’ Richie mumbled into Eddie’s open mouth. His voice sounded wet. ‘But I gotta get up before we like, seal together and have to call the fire service out to prise us apart.’

‘What fucking bizarre adhesive properties do you think my jizz has?’ Eddie opened his arms to let him go. At once he was cold. Feeling sort of gross about it he wriggled under the blankets. He watched Richie putter about the room with the interest of a zoologist observing a new species. He enjoyed looking at him, and the unfamiliar intimacy of being allowed to look. He watched Richie snap off the condom and fold it into a square of tissue. He liked the way his big feet splayed on the cheap ugly carpet, the hollows that appeared in his asscheeks when he bent to put the tissue in the garbage can, the way his cock listed on his left thigh in its cup of black hair. When Richie went into the bathroom Eddie missed him, and when he reappeared a few seconds later his heart gave a funny little hop. He lifted the blanket to let him under.

Richie had brought back a damp washcloth. Eddie lay silent as Richie washed him, first his stomach, then between his legs and ass. When he was done Richie looked away from him and Eddie, moved more than he ever had been in his life, took the washcloth from him and did it back. When he was done he kissed his hands as he had before. He felt overwhelmed with tenderness.

‘You asked me before what it was I was doing here,’ Richie said. He held his hands out as in supplication; when Eddie looked up the expression on his face was caught between awe and agony. ‘And I said I was seeing my parents. What I didn’t mention was that my dad is dying.’

_ I’m sorry to hear that _ , Eddie didn’t say. It felt empty and wrong. He leaned his head against Richie’s chest, stroking the tip of his finger through his arm hair, waiting for him. When he did speak again it came like a flood, like he couldn’t stop it.

‘Until my mom called me three weeks ago I hadn’t spoken to them in nearly seven years. Not their fault, not really. There were a few things growing up where they could’ve, I dunno, been a bit more sensitive or thoughtful or whatever, but they were never deliberately cruel, nothing unusual for the time anyway. They didn’t know I had this thing in me. But I do, this thing, and I couldn’t tell them or anyone about it. I guess I was pretty lonely as a kid—it’s funny, I don’t remember having any really close friends like, ever, but I don’t recall ever feeling lonely? At least not when I was a kid. And all caught up in this was this terror I always had, of my parents forgetting about me. That I would like, go missing and they’d just… get over it. Because I’d made so little impact on their lives. That there’d be this brief “aw shucks, Richie’s gone,” and then they’d move the fuck on. And I guess that feeling never really went away and when I moved to New York I just kind of made it happen—not on purpose, exactly, but like a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. A defensive manoeuvre. So they couldn’t do it to me first. And then I like, totally blamed them for it. Oh, my parents are such assholes etcetera etcetera. Good material, suck-ass parents, and it’s not like I had much fucking else I could talk about. And even that I made up.’

Richie stopped and without letting Eddie go twisted to retrieve the glass of water from the nightstand. Eddie watched his throat bob.

‘You know, this might come as a surprise to you seeing as I just pulled my dick out your ass but I’m not out. I mean—I have sex with people so I guess they know but it’s like, one-off things. Strangers. And I try not to do it that often. I used to have to get blackout drunk first and there was a period a few years ago when I wasn’t really looking after myself… I think I mentioned it earlier. You don’t want to hear about it. These days I just try to be careful and discrete and shit but I’ve always had this, I dunno, _terror_ , of people finding out. Like real bone-chilling terror. I mean, what the fuck, man? I live in fucking New York for fuck’s sake, half my friends are something or other but every time I’ve tried to tell someone I’ve freaked the fuck out. I throw up when I’m anxious. And, uh, cut loose friendships if I think they’re getting too close to the truth, the full  _ Touching the Void _ treatment. And yeah, it’s a lot—a  _ lot _ —to do with the fear of the consequences of coming out, don’t get me wrong, but I think it’s this other thing with my parents too… You know, I’ve never had a boyfriend? I’m thirty in two weeks and I’ve literally never had a relationship that wasn’t over by the next morning. Or when I brushed off my knees and stepped out the toilet cubicle, ha! And that’s part of what’s stopping me, I think. This fucking, fear that I’ll be forgotten about. That I’m just that unimportant and inconsequential to other people. While I avoid developing real relationships and shit I’ve got plausible deniability, you know, but if I then go and bare my soul to someone and make myself vulnerable and then they just… I don’t think I could stand that. I mean, Christ, I can’t stand myself. How the fuck am I meant to expect another person to give a shit?’

Richie moved to hide his face. Eddie was ready for him. He took Richie’s chin in both his hands and kissed him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. Then he said it again, and again. ‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to say what I need to say to you but—it’s such fucking bullshit!’

Richie snorted. ‘Nice.’

‘It is! Fuck whoever or whoevers ever made you feel like that. Eat my ass, your low self esteem!’

‘If you’re not careful it might take you up on that,’ Richie said seriously.

‘God, you’re fucking unbearable—but not  _ actually  _ unbearable. I mean, dude. I met you a few hours ago and I’ve had more fun with you than I probably had in my whole adult life. Because of you I’ve learned more about myself in this last hour than I have in the last ten years. That’s not inconsequential!’

Richie made a wry face. ‘Yeah, okay. But I’m not sure learning you love taking it up the ass is that world-changing in the grand scheme of things.’

‘You’re right, you are a fucking asshole,’ Eddie snapped, swiping at him, kissing him again. ‘It’s fortunate for you that I am too. For fuck’s sake, I didn’t just learn that I liked  _ taking it up the ass _ tonight.’

‘What do you mean?’ Richie sounded wary, and somehow desperate.

‘I mean… okay, fine, so I didn’t know that I liked that. Or that I even wanted sex at all. It was a pretty much non-existent urge for me—some people are like that, I think, and I just sort of assumed I was one of them. So yeah, that’s a thing I’ve learned tonight, and maybe it isn’t that big a deal to some people but it isn’t unimportant. Not to me. And even if it was, realising that I’m not attracted to women and that I want to have sex with men kind of is. Important, I mean.’ His throat was dry. He took Richie’s glass from him. ‘And, uh. Romantically, too. Attracted, I mean. To men.’

‘Huh.’

‘I think I need to break up with my girlfriend,’ Eddie said. ‘And move out of my mom's house.’  


‘Yeah,’ said Richie.

‘So you see, not so inconsequential.’ A headache pressed up behind Eddie’s eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Not so fucking forgettable.’

‘I guess not.’

‘Can you kiss me, please? I need to not think about what I’ve got to do for a minute.’

Richie turned him into the mattress. He pressed him with his big body, licking into his mouth and nipping at his lips till the headache had receded and Eddie felt soft and warm and cherished again.

‘Going for a hat-trick?’ Richie grinned, giving Eddie’s cock a squeeze.

‘A hat-trick is three. This would be my fourth.’ Eddie shrugged against the bedsheets, trying to look blasé, like someone who had four orgasms off the bat all the time. ‘Sure, why not.’

Richie laughed. ‘What do you want to do this time?’

‘Oh, whatever. It’s your turn to choose.’

‘Yeah, but it’s your journey of self-discovery….’ Richie gave Eddie a sudden hard look. ‘You want me to fuck you in the ass again, don’t you.’

‘I mean if you insist….’

Richie didn’t insist but he did turn Eddie over and kiss his shoulders and neck. Eddie took sly peeks at the mirror while Richie nipped down his spine. He liked the way Richie’s big hands looked on his waist and buttocks, the bruises left in places he had not dared before. At last he tipped up Eddie’s hips. ‘This might be a little intense,’ he said, rolling on a condom. ‘Let me know if you need me to stop.’

At no point did Eddie want Richie to stop, but intense was right. Part way through Richie said, breathless, ‘Noisy little thing, aint’cha?’ Eddie hadn’t even realised he was making a sound. One of Richie’s hands was pressed between Eddie’s shoulders, pinning him to the bed. The other he used to keep his hips in place. Trapping him. Making him take it. All the same Eddie managed to twist and bury his teeth into the nearest part of Richie he could reach, and it was like that, shuddering and crying through Richie’s flesh, that he beat his hat-trick.

‘Oh god, you’re so gross!’ Eddie howled when Richie turned him over to lick the come off his stomach. ‘That is so fucking unhygienic!’

‘You’re delicious!’ Richie made a big show of sucking his fingertips. Eddie remembered licking the crust of salt off his thumb, and fiercely judged the Eddie of three hours ago. Little slut.

‘You’re so nasty. What happened to the gentleman who cleaned me off with a washcloth? Who is this dog that replaced him?’

‘Romance is dead.’ Richie sucked his teeth. ‘And I lied, it doesn’t taste that great.’

‘Don’t you dare kiss me with that mouth. No!’

They scuffled in the bedsheets. Eddie didn’t have Richie’s weight or strength but he was bendy as hell and equipped with an extraordinary viciousness he hadn’t tapped into since he was a child. When at last he wrestled Richie to the mattress and pinned him with his strong thighs he crowed like Peter Pan. Then he kissed him, willingly.

‘We gotta talk about that other thing,’ Richie said when they had both got their breaths back.

‘Yes.’ Eddie did not pretend he didn’t understand what he was talking about.

‘You’ve got to go home at some point. Soon, I guess. And I need to go to my parents. But I want to see you again.’ The hard apple in Richie’s throat bobbed. He looked both elated and terrified. ‘I know I said before about—all that crap. But this feels like it could be different. I think I’d like to give it a chance. See what happens. If you want it too.’

‘You’re moving to the other side of the country,’ Eddie said again. ‘I know what you said before but it’s a big deal. I’m trying to be realistic. It’ll make things hard. And it’s already going to be hard.’ He shut his eyes, thinking of all the flights. The fucking airplanes.

‘I don’t have to go to L.A.’

Eddie opened his eyes. ‘But the job. All that stuff you said about it being your big chance.’

‘There’ll be other opportunities. To be honest, I don’t think it’s going to be what I want any more.’ Richie swallowed again. ‘I think, if this whole thing has any chance of working, I need to be, you know. Authentic.’

Eddie looked into his face. ‘You just met me. And you’re talking about changing everything. Blowing everything up. For me.’ He was suddenly overwhelmed—with hope, and excitement, and the terror of those things. He gripped Richie’s hand hard.

‘I know it’s nuts. This is so not the person I usually am. Tonight was a gamechanger. I loved every second of it. I can’t remember the last time I loved a single moment of my life. Or a single thing about it. I want this. So much. It’s time. And I want to show you how much I mean it. I’m gonna start by telling my parents.’

Eddie pulled him up for a kiss. Richie was shaking, or perhaps it was both of them. ‘Is that what you want? I mean, your dad’s sick. Are you absolutely sure? After not seeing each other for so long, is this…’ . _..how you want to end it? _ he swallowed down.

‘I think they’ll be okay with it. Better than they would have once. That’s the thing, I think. I’m looking down the barrel of thirty and all of a sudden you realise how young your parents were when they had you. That adulthood is something you work at. Like being a better person is. It’s all a work-in-progress. My parents changed. They got better. I guess I never gave them credit for that.’

Eddie stroked Richie’s hair. He let Richie bury his face in his chest, breathing hard. At last, in a voice hoarse with emotion, he continued to speak.  


‘So when my mom called she passed me on to my dad. He’s uh, he’s got one of those voice box things now. He sounds like a robot, it’s fucking hilarious.’ He inhaled sharply. ‘I mean, apart from the laryngeal cancer, obviously. He still sounded kind of himself though. Like, my dad’s a funny guy and he just, fucking, made fun of the whole situation the entire time. And I was so relieved because hey, that’s my coping mechanism too! Some crazy fucking hereditary bullshit there. And then right at the end—he was getting tired, I could tell, which fucked me up because my dad’s one of those men’s men, super athletic and sporty and shit, not the sort of guy who gets tired having a conversation. Right at the end he says so, are you seeing anyone son? And he’s got this fucking robot voice and I can tell, I can  _ tell _ , he’s saying something else. He’s telling me he knows and he’s okay with it. And he uh, wants it for me. And I just blurted out some B.S. about the all-pussy diet I’m on or whatever and tell him to tell Mom I love her and hang the fuck up. Because I can’t even be brave for my dying fucking dad.’

There was no need to acknowledge the tears running down Richie’s face. Eddie stroked the back of his neck, waiting it out, filled with a deep sense of something.  _ I love this,  _ he realised with astonishment.  _ Taking care of him—I want it. _ He wondered if that made him a bad person.

At last Richie extracted his face and rubbed it roughly with the bedspread. ‘Oh, man. Sorry about that. What a fucking mess.’

‘You don’t have to be sorry.’ Eddie pressed a kiss to his scalp and lingered, smelling his hair. He felt close to tears himself but didn’t know why.

‘Um. So anyway. I guess that’s a roundabout way of asking—and I know it’s way too soon, please feel free to run for the hills or whatever, but I think it would um… that my parents would feel a whole lot… and I’d like it… I guess this is my way of asking if I can mention you to them?’

Eddie stared.

‘I wouldn’t like, name you or anything. Just tell them that I met someone. And I’m, uh, excited about it.’ Richie’s cheeks flared. ‘Too much, right? Sorry.’

‘You really mean this, don’t you?’

‘I do.’

Eddie kissed him. It was a different kiss to all the others. A conversation, over in seconds. ‘Alright,’ he said.

‘And you…?’

‘And I’ll do what I have to do,’ he said. He had never felt so sure of himself, of what he wanted, or felt. He was cool and clear as ice. ‘And then?’

They buried down into one another. Eddie wanted to hold Richie but Richie got him first, turning him out toward the wall, pulling his back into his chest. He spoke in low tones, new plans rushing out of him like meltwater.  _ Too soon to live together really but New York’s expensive so if (when) you get the job, if you want it we could find somewhere together, separate rooms, roomies, somewhere we could both afford, I’d pull my weight, I’ve worked three jobs before. But only if you want it. And no need to go steady if you don’t want that, we’re both new to this, no need to nail it down from the get go or ever if that’s what you decided, but on the other hand if you do want that, I want it too, whatever you want…. _

It was like the sound of the sea. Too soon, he knew it; but also, not soon enough.  _ I’ve waited my entire life for this _ , he thought, and only half-understood it. Richie’s voice was receding, he was falling asleep and Eddie too. Eddie could smell him, the salt-sticky smell of him, the undeniable maleness and oh, he loved it, he loved it. He loved Richie’s arm coming over his chest, his other hand loosely cupping Eddie’s groin, the feel of his big soft cock nuzzling into his back; totally sexless, but an intimacy far beyond sex, beyond anything Eddie had ever had or known he needed.  _ I want I want I want, _ he thought. And then,  _ I love. _

Like that, they dozed.

Some time past three Eddie woke up. Richie was still around him and he lay for a while, enjoying it, the combined smell and grit of their bodies, Richie’s steady breath on the back of his neck. At last he moved, parting their skins. Richie grumbled, held tighter, kissed the line of his hair. They fumbled together, no particular intent but for the contact alone, enjoying what they had never had before and would not have for a while yet. When Eddie finally got up he was stunned by the low dull burn, and waddled to the bathroom to the soundtrack of Richie’s laughter. Richie followed him into the shower and they washed one another for the simple pleasure of touching each other’s skins.

‘I’ve got to leave,’ Eddie said between kisses, trying to pull on his shirt.

‘Mhmm,’ Richie agreed, and rolled him back into the bedsheets.

At last he was dressed. ‘I’ll walk you out to your car,’ Richie said in a voice bland with sorrow. Outside the snow had lost its enchanted quality, was squashed, half-melted and dirty. When they reached the parking lot the diner was dim and empty but the turtle still blazed, and they kissed for several minutes in its light, both reluctant to end it. It was Richie who pulled away first.

‘New York,’ he said.

‘New York,’ Eddie agreed.

Richie had left his phone charging in the room and Eddie’s was still in the car so he took out the notebook he used for interview prep and tore a page out. When Richie handed back the scrap of paper with his number on Eddie tucked it in his inside breast pocket, where he couldn’t lose it.

‘Thank you,’ he said. Richie gave him a half-smile, understanding. When Eddie climbed into the car he touched the small of his back.

‘New York,’ he said again.

The highway was miraculously free of other drivers and it was several miles before Eddie was forced to pull up onto the shoulder where he burst into tears. Afterwards he felt much better and he let the pleasure of the evening sink in, till the cold interior of the idling car seemed almost warm. He leaned his weight into his loins, liking the grounding pain. He wished he could have persuaded Richie to come inside him that second time, so he could have carried a part of him back home with him. Still, there were the bruises, and he touched the places he knew they were. He was careful to avoid his back, where the ghost imprint of Richie’s light fingers still lingered.

He thought about putting the number into his phone but he would see the messages from his mother. He wanted to stretch out this feeling as long as he could. He checked his pocket, the spot right by his heart, then clipped his seatbelt back in. Leaning into the good pain, he pulled out onto the highway.

By the time he crossed the Piscataqua River Bridge the evening’s pleasure had settled deep in his bones. There was a thin strap of sunrise on the horizon. A half hour later he pulled up outside the house he and his mother shared. The day promised to be overcast, but dry. The long drive had done a number on his body and he winced when he stepped out of the car. There was no sign here of the blizzard that had held him up.

Inside the house was dark. Sonia usually slept late but from the state of the den Eddie knew she had gone to bed in a sulk. He pulled his Razr from his pocket, thought a second, then dumped it on the side with his keys, notebook, inhaler, and wallet. He knew the gist already, and resigned himself to face it when she finally came downstairs. Anticipating the meeting, he slipped off his signet ring and put it into his breast pocket. There, he found a bunch of dried out Clorox wipes and a scrap of torn paper, R, followed by a cellphone number. He frowned. He did not remember the note, or the R.

He threw it into the trash, after the wipes.

**Author's Note:**

> The sound Eddie and Richie hear in the woods is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYYHrG6UC4U I woke up from a dream about a woman being killed with an axe to find that happening outside my bedroom one time. Not cool.
> 
> The PSA Richie references is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hth4GxNTXA I'm not American so this was a real find. Snow Job????? 
> 
> I could not find a video of Elijah Wood's fucked up eyes in Eternal Sunshine of ther Spotless Mind. For this you should be grateful.


End file.
